Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

The reason the iPhone excels in this department is likely due to fact that audio decoding for the common formats is hardware accelerated. Perhaps the mp3 decoder on the N900 doesn't offload anything (yet) to the C64x+?

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

I agree that the iPhone is a smoother experience and if I was interested in just playing music and browsing the web I would've gotten the iPhone and jailbroken it. In fact I was considering that when comparing the iPhone 3GS to the n900. But having to jailbreak it to make it do the things I want wasn't appealing. Hence why I choose the n800 over the iPod Touch two years ago and why I'm choosing the n900 over an iPhone 3GS.

Apple has also had more time and a relatively consistent operating system to work with. While Maemo has changed nearly with every version. But I also know Nokia is not reliable with support given the whole "fixed in fremantle" stunt they pulled last time. So this is my last chance given to Nokia. If they **** me off I'm going be looking at Android devices next time it's time to buy a new device. Already as it is they haven't made a good impression given the delays, and the sudden bipolarity of going from open and communicating to the community to silence.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

I assume you are not taking into account that the iPhone browser is a much lighter type of browser, incapable of rendering many web pages. So, you are not comparing apples to apples. Also, remember that the N900 keeps both applications fully running for you. That way, if you want to back to your music player for some reason your browser continues to work, it doesn't close. In the iPhone if you go back to the music app the browser has to be restarted. So, so I wouldn't say that the N900 and the iPhone play music and browse the web at the same level, the N900 is better. ;)

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

It should. Decoding of mp3 was done on the DSP even on the older internet tablets, I don't think that that has changed on the n900.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Same here. If they pull another "Nokia" I am staying away from them forever. There better be updates for the phone until functionality is significantly improved. Also agreed on the jailbreaking which can be a hassle (understatement of the year) to keep up with. The N900 is much better if you're looking for a device to tinker with.

In terms of audio acceleration whose fault is that? Mine? They should've figured that out before it left the factory.The phone lags in anything you do if you play audio. It has nothing to do with flash or the browser. Don't make me break out the camera again :D

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Did you ever try a reboot? Because I'm using my N900 to listen to music all day around (right now, too) and can scroll through a comic in cbrPager, flick photos (slightly slower than usual it seems), surf some news sites etc.
Things get slower and sometimes there are small sound problems due to queing problems (?), yes - but IMHO nowhere as bad as you describe.
PS: Open a terminal (Ctrl-Shift-X) and enter "top", press ENTER.
Now you can see what process is using how much CPU %
(Ctrl-c to abort or simply close the window again)

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

What I think is that by the time Maemo 5 comes out the N900 will have been quite suficiently updated and stabilized for it to continue working well until the end of the device's life span. I also don't think that Nokia would completely stop providing at least critical updates for it. Besides, all the applications and the OS itself will not stop working just because there is a new Maemo OS and a new device that sports it. I think that most applications developed for the N900 will work unchanged in the N910 (or what ever device comes next). And the opposite will be true as well. So, don't worry about this is what I think.:)

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

I would expect (perhaps hoping) the Maemo 6 smartphone not to be released for at least another year. I think most people change their phones every 12-18 months so really it should be a non issue.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

why are some people afraid to purchase the N900 because Maemo 6 is coming?
let me point out 2 things here

1. Nokia delays (or did you not realize that with their last few devices INCLUDING the N900?)

2. Even IF they dont delay, Maemo 6 isnt going to be released come January! We're probably not going to see Maemo 6 til next year September at earliest. Which gives more than enough time to enjoy your N900!!!

and to Megacrazy....i was able to play music AND browse the internet with both the 5800 and N97 which as well all know lack RAM...
i think something is viciously wrong with YOUR N900 if you cant.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Well, the point about the iPhone's browser needing to be restarted isn't entirely accurate. If you have been browsing using the iPhone (yes, on only the kinds of pages the browser is capable of rendering) and switch to the music player because you want to change playlists or something, you need to go back to the home screen to relaunch the browser. That's true.

Yet, the page(s) you were looking at is(are) still there. Select one and pick up where you left off. This seems analogous to returning to the task switcher and selecting one or other open browser page on the N900.

There is some multitasking on the iPhone. Of course, only for apps supplied by Apple, and only some of them. And that got to be a huge annoyance after a while.

I look forward to not having that restriction on my N900 - sometime late next month *sigh*

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Who said I can't?

The point is that exactly as you said, older phones can do this just fine...and on this newer device it's supposed to be perfectly smooth...which it is not. That's the problem.

The 2nd problem is that there are other devices out there right now that do this perfectly smoothly giving Nokia 0 excuses.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Let's put it this way. I'm not buying the N900 largely because I'm so damn satisfied with what my "abandoned" N800 does!

Sure, I wish it had a faster processor, etc., and there are some new tricks that would be nice, but if Nokia "abandoned" Maemo 4, they abandoned it in a highly functional state. As rm42 said, it isn't as if the OS and the apps stop working!

So if the N900 does what you want (or will do what you want once a few more apps are written for it), I say: Buy it!

(You're right that you may not be able to keep up with the latest and the greatest once Maemo 6 comes out; but without new hardware, you wouldn't have the latest and the greatest anyway, if that's what's important to you.)

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

No, in many situations it is not analogous. Say for example that you are in the middle of a chat with a Dell support person inquiring about the arrival of your girlfriend's N900. You can easily switch back and fort between your music player and the browser without interrupting the chat session! You can't do that on the iPhone.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Like I already said, I went a bit overboard intentionally to make a point - many people were doing their iPhone vs. N900 dance and I gave it a different spin. That's all. As for iPhone experience, I admit mine is limited, but enough to know my iPod touch experience (which I do own) is comparable for the purposes of what I wrote. E.g. browsing and media-playing.

No, I am not kidding. The improved resolution on the N900 makes a huge difference in browsing web and album covers. It makes it much easier to handle larger amounts of information at a time. As for exaggerations, sure, I was exaggerating somewhat to make a point.

Sure, I could jailbreak, but that is an unsupported road - and a hassle like you said - that I'm not interested in taking. It is also very much true there is more content for the iPhone/iPod touch ecosystem, I will probably continue to enjoy some of that content on my iPod touch. But to be able to multitask smoothly even just between browser and other basic applications is a big thing for me. And the multi-tasking/application selector is nice.

I don't know what your expectations of smooth browsing are, but so far it looks very good to me. Flash is also very usable in many cases, much more so than on my iPod touch - where... well, it isn't. Trust me, I've browsed a lot on the iPod touch and the N900 experience is simply superior. The better resolution, ability to use a stylus, hardware keyboard for entering text (without blocking half the screen when doing so) and Flash support all come together in a way that is a vast improvement over my iPod touch (or iPhone). I'm sure I know what you mean by "smoothly" in relation to the iPhone/iPod touch, but to me that is simply irrelevant compared to the other benefits in browsing on N900.

I have no answer to your question what can be replaced, I just know Apple does not allow one to replicate functionality via the official App Store - and Nokia on Maemo has no such restrictions. It goes to the potential of the device - and that is interesting at this point. Just like opening an X term on the Maemo, it gives a sense of open road. We shall see. I wouldn't be praising Nokia for solely advancing on their own roadmap, if what they are doing wasn't interesting for me or people like me...

You seem like a technology enthusiast from your writing. Surely you can understand why Maemo sounds and seems interesting, appealing? Maybe it will fail, but at this point the interest and potential is there... and that is one nice thing about the N900. To be on the starting block of something new and different. Because the Maemo approach certainly is different compared to iPhone. Interesting to see how all this "openness" pans out.

I am not saying Maemo is the only game in town, but it does take a different spin on things - and this is maemo.org. I'm sure there is much potential in many other technologies.

Look, my post was not about playing music, it was about perspective and expectations. Take the music part as a side-step, if you will. I never intended to load my music onto the phone, I was perfectly happy using the iPod touch for that. But once I felt how intuitive it was to browse around Maemo with stylus (and fingers occasionally) I felt like I wanted to. And you know what, it works very smooth for me. Other than the playlist management which was explored and found lacking (I don't manage playlists on a mobile device ever), it does what I need it to do well. And browsing dozens of album covers on that high-res screen beats cover flow anytime.

I continue to re-iterate my point: iPhone shouldn't be on that list. It is not comparable. It is not useable as a mobile computer, and that, is what N900 is - a mobile computer (that also features phone functionality).

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Megacrazy - One more thing, you said Maemo has to compare well with the competition. That is true, but a part of the equation is also the hardware. I like the hardware Nokia makes. I think the N900 hardware is very nice. Droid, for example, is simply a phone I could not buy based on looks. Call me vain, but that's my opinion.

The N900 hardware, its screen, keyboard, stylus, good camera, etc. appeal to me. There is very little hardware-wise I would find lacking in this phone. Style is good. (What little I found lacking, see around page 21 in the Owner's thread for my report.) Certainly the iPhone hardware lacks a lot more for me (lets start with keyboard and camera quality, for instance).

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Ah, true. In some situations it is not analogous.

Although, I have never tried the above scenario with an iPhone. I don't know exactly what would happen - though I suspect the interaction would be lost.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Huh?

All your claims were *completely destroyed* by the video response to yours.

Go ahead and make more videos.

I'd love to see that user make another video response. His videos are amazing.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

iJanne, I have no issue with any of the points you made. I agree. As far as looks go the Droid looks like something that belongs in a 1980's knight rider episode.

All I am saying is that Nokia needs to step up their devices quickly or they will learn some lessons the hard way. I understand that this is supposed to be a mobile computer etc. but that's not how people will look at it. If it makes calls...it's a phone (especially that it looks like a phone as well). It needs to compare to all the other devices and excel at what it does. If it fails to do that it's only Nokia's fault, not ours. No, I am not saying the N900 "fails".

What bothers me though, is that people on this forum fail to admit that there were other players here before who have been doing things better for years now. All the negativity in my posts is from a consumer point of view.I have 3 devices in front of me...2 scroll perfectly smoothly and 1 doesn't. I am not going to care why...what else it does etc. This is basic functionality that needs to be there from the very beginning.

There is no need to talk to me about iPhone hardware because I know it very well.

- No AVRCP
- Bluetooth signal range is crap
- Screen issues (see half the screen is yellowish)
- Battery life is abysmal
- etc.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Except that those buying this are not the average Smartphone user for the most part. Given the lack of association with a carrier, this phone/mobile computer isn't going to attract that kind of attention here in the US at least. (Europe might be a different story) Those of us who have been following this also know that this phone has not been overhyped: we know its strengths and weaknesses for the most part. It isn't like Android, which has taken about a year for it to actually start living up to the hype.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Really...by going to a different site than the one I went to?

By not having anything to scroll through in the RSS app?

By playing music in the media player, not the widget like I had mentioned?


You're right :)

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

It's most likely to have loads of average users in Europe.

Unsubsidized phones are much more popular in Europe + it's being subsidized anyway + Nokia branding and marketing (most valuable brand in Europe).

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Some of Nokia's own literature has referred to the N900 as the new flagship... but after searching for it just now I think that's recently been changed. :D

Anyway, nice write-up. Enjoy your N900!

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Yeah, I kinda changed my post midstream realizing that I have a very American view of the situation.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

If I may, I need to mix some idioms here.

For geeks, the N900 is the mother of all bombs.

Oh and Megacrazy, you can't say, "you can do that if you jailbreak your iPhone" because that is not only not approved by Apple, it will void your warranty. Yikes.

That doesn't sound like a valid comparison. That's like comparing the Droid to an N900 that dual-boots to a hacked version of Android that lets you use the Google apps (which I suspect we'll see in the next few months, and will be one of those hacks that makes the tech blogs go nuts).

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

That was not my experience last night at all. I was playing with a friend's iPhone 3G and the UI would freeze up and stutter (although the music kept playing quite nicely, I'll give it that) while I was typing and browsing web pages and playing music at the same time.

That hasn't been my usual experience, but it clearly illustrates that not everything is all roses with the iPhone as you seem to claim. (Maybe the 3Gs is better in that respect)

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

True but unless you bricked your iPhone, you can always return it to default with a flash for warranty purposes.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Yeah I think we're all talking about the 3Gs because it's the same hardware as the N900. The 3G had issues keeping up with rendering pages (kinda like the N900) while playing music...but it was never jerky. That being said, you can't compare the 3GS with the 3G...which is much slower.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Go away psycho.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Megacrazy, but you are not really exactly comparing apples to apples: N900 has more than double the pixels on screen (resolution) to scroll compared to the iPhone 3GS.

If iPhone 3G struggled at times with the lower resolution, wouldn't it be somewhat logical that N900, with more power, might sometimes skip a few beats with more than double the pixels - and content - on screen to scroll and layout?

I'm not trying to make excuses. In fact, I don't find scrolling on the N900 jerky at all (not saying nothing can jerk it, just saying it works just fine in my opinion), but saying that it does have quite a bit of more pixels than iPhone 3GS.

Certainly there are places for improvement in Maemo, and optimization, so not trying to belittle that.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Here are BTW the resolutions of iPhone 3GS and N900:

- iPhone 3GS: = 480x320 = 153600 pixels
- N900: 800x480 = 384000 pixels

The iPhone has only 40% of the pixels in the N900.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

[QUOTE=iJanne;390868]...as a computer or a netbook.

Enter N900 and Maemo 5.

Unlike some say, this is not Nokia's flagship phone. ...N900 is still a developer edition and was never meant to catch this much fire, I guess it surprised Nokia too that it did. Maemo is still at least that one release short of the consumer edition. And while I love the N900, I wouldn't recommend it for casual users. It is not for them. Maemo is not for them yet.

Did Nokia drop the ball with the development of S60? Yes they did...
...
Then, the expectations.
...
Clearly there are a lot of people here who bought the N900 to replace a smartphone, even the iPhone.
...
Nokia is releasing this for the developers and tech-heads, the next round of Maemo was meant for the regular consumer. ..N900 is there to activate the community and to help mature the platform, not yet the end-result.
...
Nokia's roadmap clearly states that Maemo 6 is the consumer release. Agreed, that may be late time-wise, but at least they are moving. Maemo 6, I don't think they can afford to miss, but anyone thinking Maemo 5 would release as a final product simply didn't read the big print in my opinion. This manifests itself in things like missing OVI support, missing features, Maemo is still short of the final Qt user-interface etc. This is all public info! QUOTE]



Although I don't want this to happen Nokia may risk dropping the ball on Maemo, too. Why? Paradoxically, because of the unexpected success of the N900, as it reaches out beyond what is the intended audience. Furthermore, Nokia isn't doing too well at the moment so I'm sure there is pressure internally to deliver more profit, and they will be opportunistic to capture the profit potential residing in the N900. There's the usual trade-off between short and long term gain.

I was in a phone store just the other day. They sell phones from all the big suppliers, and with most operating systems. I asked them about the N900. "Nokia had a demo for us. It's the most impressive phone we have ever seen." was the reply from the salesrep, eyes glowing.

If I'm a consumer, I will be impressed by the sales person's comment, and I may not read reviews, or the "public information" but rather go with my impressions from the sales guy, and the media in general, and Nokia's reputation for making solid phones. So I will buy it. I will expect it to do things it doesn't.

Then I discover Nokias new so called Maemo phones aren't what I expected. I will be disappointed, and I will be talking about my disappointment to others. One bad word carries the weight of ten good ones. And probably I will not buy the Maemo6 unit, either.

So the success of the N900 may cause trouble for Nokia. Today customer expectations drive the market more than ever. The competition is stiff, and word of mouth, and hype oounts.

The only way to continuously stay ahead of the game is to supersede customer expectations. Whether these expectations are right or wrong is irrelevant, they are expectations and they will put pressure on Nokia. The main pressure will be to provide the functions that perhaps are not intended to be in Maemo5, that consumers expect on todays "top of the line" phones, whether the Nokia wants the N900 to be seen as such or not.

I may be wrong. With the phone market being the phone market, where e.g. HTC contiously puts out products promising to deliver, and always are missing one or two features, or functionalities, or do them poorly etc, and still are able to prosper.

Nevertheless there is a risk that the success of the N900 will endanger the market perception of Maemo6 devices. I hope Nokia updates the Maemo5 to please consumers and keep faith in their platform. They can't afford to drop the ball this time, or they're dead. Greater companies have crumbled.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Gadgety, and others who have voiced the same fear, your worry, I think, is warranted. Hopefully it won't go that way much, but it might...

Perhaps Nokia should have named or communicated the N900 a bit differently.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

I have to disagree you cant make phone calls on the n900 well i cant.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Get some perspective:
http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/a...p?a=318&p=2284

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

I can't see why Nokia can't update the N900 to 6, Apple seem to be able to do it with the iPhone. I can understand why they didn't invest in the 8xx with its different OMAP arch, but they really need to pick a product and back it all the way and build up a strong user base.

I just hope if Maemo 6 is developed around OMAP4, that the functions are similar enough to maintain both archs....

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Not even with the included headset?

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

I have the feeling that im unique here in that i wanted the N900 because of the hardware.

Small form factor, usable hw keyboard, resistive touch screen, HSPA, OMAP, 3.5mm jack ect won the day for me. I think i wouldve bought the N900 no matter which OS it was running, the fact that its Maemo is just icing on the cake.

Hopefully in the not too distant future i will be able to run multiple OS's on it including, Mer and Android.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

Not unique at all..I feel exactly the same. I had been looking for a replacement for my E90 and the N97 just didn't cut it - processor was anaemic (would need to compress videos to watch them), keyboard didn't appeal to me. The N900 met all my hardware needs and the OS it ran was not terribly important.

Re: N900 - My experience: It is better than iPhone...
 

N900 : best hardware + best operating system